Giving Credit where Credit Is Due

ACM recognizes excellence through its eminent awards for technical and professional achievements and contributions in computer science and information technology. It also names as Fellows and Distinguished Members those members who, in addition to professional accomplishments, have made significant contributions to ACM's mission. ACM awards recognize achievements by young computing professionals, educators, theoretical computer scientists, software systems innovators, and pioneers who have made humanitarian and cross-discipline contributions.

How to Nominate

Award nominations deadlines occur throughout the year, with a heavy concentration in January. Please refer to the Nomination Process page for each award, which includes not only information about the deadline but also guidance for preparing each type of nomination. ACM's conflict-of-interest guidelines apply to all award nominations.

USA - 2017

USA - 2012

Along with Shafi Goldwasser, for transformative work that laid the complexity-theoretic foundations for the science of cryptography, and in the process pioneered new methods for efficient verification of mathematical proofs in complexity theory.

Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali laid the foundations of modern theoretical cryptography, taking it from a field of heuristics and hopes to a mathematical science with careful definitions and security models, precise specifications of adversarial capabilities, and rigorous reductions from formally defined computational problems. Their results, jointly and with others, established the now-standard definitions of security for the fundamental primitives of encryption and digital signatures, and provided exemplary implementations meeting the stated security objectives. Even more importantly, their work helped to establish the tone and character of modern cryptographic research. Jointly and in collaboration with others, they provided stunning innovations in the form of random functions, interactive proofs, and zero-knowledge protocols, with implications beyond cryptography to theoretical computer science in general.

ACM Recognizes 2017 Fellows for Making Transformative Contributions and Advancing Technology in the Digital Age

ACM has named 54 members ACM Fellows for major contributions in areas including database theory, design automation, information retrieval, multimedia computing and network security. The accomplishments of the 2017 ACM Fellows lead to transformations in science and society. Their achievements play a crucial role in the global economy, as well as how we live and work every day.

"To be selected as a Fellow is to join our most renowned member grade and an elite group that represents less than 1 percent of ACM’s overall membership,” explains ACM President Vicki L. Hanson. “The Fellows program allows us to shine a light on landmark contributions to computing, as well as the men and women whose hard work, dedication, and inspiration are responsible for groundbreaking work that improves our lives in so many ways."

Underscoring ACM’s global reach, the 2017 Fellows hail from universities, companies and research centers in China, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

ACM will formally recognize its 2017 Fellows at the annual Awards Banquet, to be held in San Francisco on June 23, 2018. Additional information about the 2017 ACM Fellows, and the awards event, as well as previous ACM Fellows and award winners, is available on the ACM Awards site.